Trump just made another outlandish pledge to voters

Former President Donald Trump vowed to end birthright citizenship in the United States on his first day back in the Oval Office according to a bizarre anit-immigration Agenda47 video that was released by his campaign team on Twitter. But what did he actually say?

Throughout the nearly four-minute video, there was a lot of harkening back to some of the former president's first-term classics. Trump said criminals and the mentally unhealthy were crossing America’s borders and he blamed Joe Biden for the illegal foreign invasion. 

Trump complained about the millions of illegal immigrants that stormed the American border under Biden and railed against the laws that grant the children of those illegal aliens the right to become U.S. citizens. “Can you imagine?” Trump grumbled. 

These new citizens would be eligible for welfare and taxpayer-funded healthcare as well as the right to vote and countless other government benefits Trump said, adding that those benefits would extend to their illegal parents and calling it “a reward for breaking the laws of the United States.”

Trump also called the policy of birthright citizenship a “magnet helping draw the flood of illegals across our borders,” adding that they were coming by the “millions and millions.” 

However, more worrying than Trump’s dangerous rhetoric about illegal aliens was his promise that he would end the long-standing right of birthright citizenship in the United States with the swipe of a pen on his first day back as President if elected. 

“As part of my plan to secure the border, on Day One… I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship.” 

“My policy will choke off a major incentive for continued illegal immigration, deter more migrants from coming, and encourage many of the aliens Joe Biden has unlawfully let into our country to go back to their home countries,” the former president added. 

Whether you’re for or against Trump’s plan to halt birthright citizenship, Reuters noted it is likely to face legal challenges since it is tied to the 14th Amendment which the outlet pointed out was ratified after the Civil War and gave all those born in the U.S. citizenship. 

The Hill noted that most experts say that a president doesn’t have the authority to end birthright citizenship in the United States via Executive Order since it’s enshrined in the Constitution and its long-held interpretation was decided all the way back in 1898. 

The current held interpretation according to The Hill is that any child, regardless of their parent’s immigration status, is to be considered an American citizen if born within the United States as decided by the Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

University of Virginia Law Professor Amanda Frost told The Hill there were expectations of America's birthright citizenship and noted that U.S. birthright laws did not apply to the children of diplomats and those who were born in sovereign Native American tribes.

“In contrast, immigrants and their children living in the United States were and are required to follow all federal and state laws or face criminal and civil penalties and so are fully ‘subject’ to the nation’s ‘jurisdiction,'” Frost explained. 

This isn’t the first time Trump has talked about axing America’s birthright citizenship. In 2019, the former president told reporters that he was considering ending the law and said: “We’re looking at that very seriously, birthright citizenship” according to CNN.

Trump also said he wanted to end birthright citizenship via Executive Order way back in 2018 according to The Guardian, which also noted that it was a pledge he often pulled out while on the campaign trail during his 2016 race for the White House. 

“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,” Trump told Axios at the time according to The Guardian. 

"It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end,” the former president said. But it never did end, did it?

After four years in office, the former president never did issue an Executive Order that revoked birthright citizenship in the United States, and that fact might be the key to understanding why Trump has offered to end it if he’s elected in 2024.